OK. In that scenario, the correct thing to do would be: 1) If I currently believe in ghosts (that is, if my confidence that ghosts exist rises above the threshold of belief), get the hell out of there. 2) Ask myself what I would differentially expect to observe if ghosts existed or didn’t, and look for those things (while continuing to follow #1), and modify my confidence that ghosts exist based on my observations. If at any point my confidence crosses the threshold of belief in either direction, re-evaluate rule #1.
I don’t see what value committing to a belief (either way) without reference to observed evidence would provide in that scenario.
2) Ask myself what I would differentially expect to observe if ghosts existed or didn’t, and look for those things
The tricky part about this is establishing how much weird stuff you’d expect to see in the absence of ghosts. There will always be unexplained phenomena, but how many is too many?
Establishing that would be helpful, but is not necessary to get started.
Either there’s more weird stuff in this house than outside of it, or there isn’t. If there is, that should increase my confidence that there’s something weird-stuff-related in this house. If there isn’t, that should decrease my confidence.
If I’m confident that ghosts are weird-stuff-related, the second case should decrease my confidence that there are ghosts in this house, and the first case should increase it.
Yes.
OK. In that scenario, the correct thing to do would be:
1) If I currently believe in ghosts (that is, if my confidence that ghosts exist rises above the threshold of belief), get the hell out of there.
2) Ask myself what I would differentially expect to observe if ghosts existed or didn’t, and look for those things (while continuing to follow #1), and modify my confidence that ghosts exist based on my observations. If at any point my confidence crosses the threshold of belief in either direction, re-evaluate rule #1.
I don’t see what value committing to a belief (either way) without reference to observed evidence would provide in that scenario.
The tricky part about this is establishing how much weird stuff you’d expect to see in the absence of ghosts. There will always be unexplained phenomena, but how many is too many?
Establishing that would be helpful, but is not necessary to get started.
Either there’s more weird stuff in this house than outside of it, or there isn’t.
If there is, that should increase my confidence that there’s something weird-stuff-related in this house.
If there isn’t, that should decrease my confidence.
If I’m confident that ghosts are weird-stuff-related, the second case should decrease my confidence that there are ghosts in this house, and the first case should increase it.